Silencing the Echoes
by 1yellowfish
Summary: Part 2 of "John's Secret" doesn't make sense without first reading "Don't Ask Me That". It's time to work on John's secret and there may or may not be a plan. Either way Sherlock's going to help. John might not be as ready as he'd hoped. m/m complete.


**AN:**

**STOP! **

**WAIT! **

**If you haven't read the first story in this series "Don't Make Me Tell" you're about to be_ really_ confused. I didn't write a recap at the begining of the story because I used to watch DBZ and the recaps angered me greatly. So honestly without DMMT this story is _not_ going to read well.**

**Also, much love to my Ennui Enigma over on ff dot net. She made this story much prettier than it was before.**

**Ok, you may continue now. :)**

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Silencing the Echoes

After that first night of intense work John had expected to be constantly dogged by Sherlock. Cornered and made to go through exercises that would help him build his foundation. What he had not expected was nothing. When he questioned it, Sherlock had merely waved him off saying John knew the process and needed to work on it on his own.

"Well, that's lovely." He had sighed. "It still doesn't tell me anything new."

Sherlock simply looked up from his steepled fingers. "I can't tell you how your mind works John. I reside in my own and that's enough. I can't observe what's in your head, that's where you live. It's time for you to clean house. You're good at that."

John growled in frustration and left the dishes half finished in a strop. He really only knew the bare-bones of the process Sherlock expected him to be working through. Sherlock had told him about the foundations of his own Mind Palace, a place he built out of frantic energy and extreme boredom with no relief. How he'd created a catalogue and divided everything according to its importance to him. He spoke about deleting things that were worthless such as the solar system or popular music and John had winced.

John couldn't delete. His brain wouldn't be his brain if he could remove those memories; he wouldn't need his own Palace if he wasn't so over run. Sherlock seemed to notice his blunder and pressed on through. He explained that architecture was what had led him to build a Palace as opposed to some other system because most of his data was stored visually. John, of course, would need his own medium to work with and Sherlock couldn't help with that. He did provide several pages of categories John could start working with to organize his sounds.

"Every thought, memory and fact has a thing. Books are important tools but if it were just facts I needed I wouldn't need more than the library." Sherlock had tried to explain. "The trick is in the connections. I can know all about burns and tissue damages from the words on a page but when it comes to connecting a body with a burn scar from years ago there has to be a more immediate connection. I can't always retire to the facts when I need to access it in a moment. So fire lives in the fireplace, in the candle sticks, in the oven. It's everywhere it should be, and once you see it in one place you can see it in every other scenario until it makes sense how it made it to the body, even if that means the fire was never where it should have been."

John felt overwhelmed. He tried to separate them based on location, type, and similarity but found too much crossover. He would meditate on the sound of a doorknob and then every jiggling lock he'd ever heard would rush into him filling him entirely and drowning him. He couldn't maintain focus and found himself retreating to his iPod even inside the safety of 221B. Sherlock said nothing but he noticed, of course.

It had been a week when the 'plan' was revealed to him accidentally. He'd called out a farewell to Sarah and she had responded quite happily that she'd see him in two weeks and have fun. John was certain there was a strange look on his face as he processed these words; apparently he was going on a trip, wonderful of Sherlock to tell him really. He may have rolled his eyes.

He tried not to let himself get angry about the invasion of his schedule but by the time he'd reached the flat he was livid. Taking the steps quickly he opened the door already asking Sherlock what on earth was going on and why was John was suddenly on vacation without John's say so.

"What the hell do you think you're playing at, Sherlock?" He fumed.

"No time for that now, good you've got your coat." Sherlock ignored his flatmates ire.

Sherlock had already slipped on his coat, picked up his violin case and turned John around before he made it fully inside. Then they were heading back down the stairs. Before John could properly protest they were climbing into one of Mycroft's shiny black cars and heading away from Baker Street.

"What's this all about then?" He demanded angrily.

Sherlock handed him a familiar battered notebook from his coat pocket, the experiment notebook. "Page four."

"If I said I'm done with this bloody experiment right now?" John growled arms crossed over his chest.

"We'd have to decide if you wanted to spend your vacation in the country or back at 221B." Sherlock said with a wave of his hand. "It's your choice John. It's always your choice."

John relaxed slightly. "Next time ask me before a kidnapping yea? Or arranging my vacation for me."

"It was expedient." Sherlock pouted.

"It was invasive and a bit not good." John scolded.

"Fine." Sherlock slumped in his seat.

"Did you ask Mycroft for help?"

"Expedience." Sherlock mumbled.

John smiled at that. Sherlock hated involving his older brother, even on his most interesting experiments. That he would do so for John was sweet. Also a little terrifying, especially if he shared his results with the man. John had been lucky the military hadn't bothered examining his childhood records and had never tried to capitalize on his ability. He wasn't sure the elder Holmes would overlook it so easily.

"He doesn't know." Sherlock grumbled from inside the collar of his coat. Again John felt his heart warm at the reassurance from the supposed "high-functioning-sociopath."

They arrived at a manor house, one of those large ancestral homes that were sometimes opened for the public to view. John felt his lack of surprise was more a result of the life he led with Sherlock than anything else. He did have trouble imagining a young Sherlock getting away with hiding human hands in the fridge at this house though. Possibly being given his own fridge to keep the family from being poisoned? He could easily imagine the zero tolerance policy towards kitchen based experiments.

He didn't spend a lot of time pondering though; instead, Sherlock led him to a door on the second level and pointed for him to enter. It was a lush bedroom. John barely removed his shoes before falling into the comfort of his self-imposed silence. He buried himself in the warm covers and slept until an unreasonably late hour.

He finally emerged for the day around ten and found Sherlock lurking in the hallway. The two found breakfast for them in the kitchen and ate quite happily. John was glad to see the genius relishing the meal. Whoever had cooked was a saint in John's eyes getting the too thin man to ingest anything was normally such a chore.

The first day was spent in the library. Sherlock brought book after book before John and gave him chapters to read. John found himself enthralled with the materials. Thoughts on meditation, theory, medical benefits, studies, and other treatises on organization and the benefit of order, the physics of sound, the beauty of a sound wave, the benefit of chaos, the wonder of the artistic, even several chapters on chakras and spirituality. So much information John thought his head might explode and all of it from so many different sources. Worst still, none of it seem to make any sense at all.

John had eaten sandwiches at the antique mahogany table in the library whilst reading but lunch had long since past when he finished his assignments. Sherlock lead him back to the kitchen where they both ate pork and mash. After dinner Sherlock led them through to the study where he played for half an hour. Then they sat and discussed it all.

"It's all very fascinating I agree." John burst out at one point. "But I cannot fathom how it's supposed to help me."

"Look at your Palace." Sherlock insisted. "Your foundation, what have you achieved?"

John closed his eyes and looked, really looked, but saw nothing. "Nothing. Not a bloody thing."

"Now, listen to your Palace." Sherlock handed him his earplugs. "And tell me the same thing."

John sighed and plugged his ears as instructed. The normal cacophony was waiting for him, the ringing bells, the jiggling doorknobs, and the conversations one on top of the other clamoring for his attention. He almost sighed in frustration when he realized something.

"The doorknobs, they're not normally at the top. I was working on them, they're almost, well. They're different."

A hand on his shoulder had him opening his eyes. Funny, he didn't remember closing them. He removed one of the earplugs.

"They're almost _in-tune_? No, that's the wrong word, but it's as close as I can get." He said waving a frustrated hand.

"They're harmonizing, not screaming, present but not demanding. Am I right?" Sherlock's eyes were bright with delight.

"That's it exactly."

"They still need a place to be though. They'll stay right there almost being organized, almost fitting in but not quite until you devise a place for them to reside."

"A Palace," John sighed. "How do you make a place for sound though?"

"I didn't. I made a picture for sounds, but your mind is different." John pretended the look to his crown didn't make him think of a zombie salivating for brains, but it didn't work so well.

They retired soon afterwards and John slept to a symphony of doorknobs rattling, it was soothing in a strange way.

The second day was spent with John meditating on certain sounds that Sherlock would make; opening a window was the first. Slamming a door the second. That took him through lunch and up to dinner. He had 30 years of doors and windows to categorize. He found himself wondering how to organize them, by emotion – an angrily slammed door was very loud, but so was an excitedly shut one and a door shut in seething anger could be almost silent. He wondered if he should organize them by volume, but it was harder for him to find a specific one. In the end he organized them both ways and pushed it aside. Windows were easier.

After dinner Sherlock played for him again and John found himself shifting through the sounds of doors and windows to the pleasant refrain of "The Lark Ascending." He slept with the violin humming at him all that night. If not for his earplugs he could have believed Sherlock had spent the night in his room playing for him. There was no doubt to his ear that the only violinist he'd heard in his sleep was Sherlock.

Days three through seven were a blur of organizing. It was a marathon of hearing and categorizing. It wasn't until day eight that John found himself completely overwhelmed. Sherlock had clinked together some glasses and John was drowning in the sound of glasses. He tried to let it roll over him, but he was caught in its fierce undertow

Glasses on New Year's, at weddings, at birthday parties, were crushed by glasses slamming onto counters followed by angry drunken voices, glasses slipping and breaking, glass shattering into a wall, glass tinkling to the floor almost delicately, glass crushed under his boot, the almost silent scratch of glass sinking into a bare foot, the sucking of air through teeth as glass was removed from a soft palm, the smash of glass from an elbow against a car window. John's hand grabbed his iPod his face going a pale green. He didn't like that memory. That memory could easily be classified under his PTSD, trying so hard to free Private Gidley and then pulling him out only to be too late. Not something loud, he needed something loud to focus on.

"Il Trovators" quickly absorbed him.

He didn't work on his Palace anymore that night.

Day nine he was quieter and Sherlock carefully chose his first sound, the turning of a page. John let himself get absorbed in all the paper and books he'd handled, he'd been near, the sound of a fallen book, the sound of a thrown book, the sound of the last page being reverently closed, the sound of pages gripped in excited hands turned rapidly to absorb more of the story. It was relaxing. He slept well that night.

Day 10 started similarly to each on this working vacation of John's. He was met by Sherlock and they ate in the kitchen. But instead of retiring to the study Sherlock had them walking out the door. John simply took it as a new step in their experiment. They stopped at a beautiful building, all arches and doors. Sherlock said a few words to the man at the entry and they were allowed inside.

They made their way through a large lobby with a white fountain then up red carpeted stairs and John found them in a top box looking down on a grand stage. The ceiling dwarfed everything with its magnificence, gold leaf on angelic and pastoral scenes, beautiful chandeliers dripping with sparkling crystal. A man was talking rapidly to an orchestra, but he was too far away to hear. There was a sharp _taptaptap_ of the baton on a stand and then the room absolutely filled with music.

John had been to concerts before had listened to great music played but something was astonishingly different sitting here in silence with Sherlock completely surrounded by the music. It was the silence. Before he'd always been in an audience, the shuffling of feet, the sighs of people, the whispers of lovers, the turning of a program, it all grated on him. It lessened the music. This place though, this music hall was silent except for the roar that was the living music. He had given him the undeniable spirit that couldn't be contained on a recording. Sherlock had given him this.

He didn't realize he was crying until the piece ended and Sherlock awkwardly handed him a handkerchief. He laughed. Sherlock wasn't the type to carry such an article, and he didn't even own them as far as John could tell, the one currently mopping his face was his own.

He looked to a concerned Sherlock and tried to tell him how much it meant to him. Instead he found himself kissing the man.

It was as awkward and teeth clicking as he had always feared it would be but never believed he'd try. Sherlock didn't seem to mind, he seemed fascinated. He grabbed John's shoulders and kissed back just as feverishly, as though he too had just had a life changing moment. Perhaps he had, John wasn't going to question him. When they fell apart it was as the music started again.

John felt himself moved once more, until he was pressed right up against the taller man. He almost reached out to grab the long fingers but felt Sherlock might object. They were halfway into the second movement when he found the slender fingers gripped his instead. They didn't talk about it when they got home, though John felt he should be pressing for communication, at the same time he didn't want to jinx anything. He stayed silent.

Day eleven started with John not leaving his room.

Day eleven ended with John still in his room.

Day twelve began with Sherlock pushing his way in and demanding John's attention.

"We haven't got time for this." He had stated briskly.

"Time for what?"

"You having a crisis because you believe yourself to be heterosexual and find our mutual attraction a worrisome event. It's trivial, sexuality is so fluid it's folly to attempt to label and box yourself. We haven't time for it anyway. We are mid-experiment; you can have your melt down later."

"I'm not melting down, Sherlock."

"Then what do you call this sulking about and wasting an entire day? Do you know what I had to promise Mycroft to get rid of the bugs? Honestly, you're a military doctor; you're supposed to excel at dealing with crises of all sorts. It's not like I planned to have my way with you the moment you admitted your attraction. Now stop this brooding at once."

John stifled a giggle. "Oh like you never sulk and brood?"

"I contemplate."

John couldn't stand it anymore and laughed.

"I don't see what's so funny about putting this experiment in jeopardy?"

John just waved at Sherlock to be silent while he composed himself.

"I was arranging my sounds." He managed, still catching his breath, at Sherlock's indignant look. "I had them all lined up and was separating them into playlists. I had the beginnings of my very own iTunes library in my head."

"That's an awful idea." Sherlock had scoffed, arms practically flailing, as he dismissed the idea violently. "There must be a better,"

"There is." John cut him off, grabbing the pale hand as it passed mid-gesture. "The music hall. The perfect place for every sound. The arches hold everything so wonderfully. They sit there and wait for me to turn to them to call them down to echo when I need them." John's eyes were not misty. At least he told himself that.

"The chandeliers hold all my glass, Sherlock." John closed his eyes. "There's an orchestra pit filled with all the music I've ever heard." His hands waved in a gentle sway as he called on the music from last night. "The seats are filled with the voices of everyone I've ever heard, the shuffle of cloth is held in the curtains. The fountain, it holds the ocean, and the rain, the stream of a faucet and a waterfall." He stuttered in a breath. "It's so quiet Sherlock."

He looked up wide eyed and almost frightened. "It's so quiet."

He was sitting on the beds edge and then Sherlock was beside him. He pressed into his side and felt his warmth. "You fill the stage."

"Everything is still except for you standing there with your violin. Bloody contrary bastard, refusing to be categorized." He let his head fall to Sherlock's shoulder and felt the long arms wrap around his shoulders.

"It's only fair." Sherlock sniffed. "You're constantly running about my Mind Palace disrupting the place."

Day thirteen started like no other, with both of them waking in John's bed. They hadn't taken that step yet, although they both wanted too. John was pleased to find Sherlock slept like a limpet completely glued to the warmth that was John. It was comfortable. It was everything he had dreamed it might be. Until Sherlock woke and stiffened so quickly an elbow caught John's ribs and led to an uncomfortably fast escape from the warmth of the covers. It seemed that they would have to work on this waking up together bit.

Sherlock demanded to know more of the Music Hall John had built but so much of it was only sound and echo's that it was hard for John to explain it. In the end he had Sherlock close his eyes and imagine a bat. A bat couldn't see very well but using sound it could see its environment better than many with eyes. John's Music Hall was so much echo and darkness that its structure wasn't so much in its architecture but in its emptiness.

"Imagine you're Palace." John guided. "But remove all the walls, the floor and ceiling. Instead as you move your footsteps tell you there is a floor, the sound travels and shows you the wall and echo's down from the ceiling, it gives you every dimension shows you every invisible nook, tells you where the wall is a door and when the floor gives way to stairs."

Sherlock opened his eyes and stared at John intently. "Can you do that?"

"What?"

"Echo location?" Sherlock demanded.

"I, a bit." John admitted. "It's just a by-product."

"It's perfect." Sherlock was beaming. "You know how kidnappers love to use blindfolds, how easy it would be to run off if they didn't know you could see with your ears!" The man practically jumped in place.

"I don't think running is such a"

"Well, no, not right away, we'd have to work on it of course." He started thinking.

"We've got to be in London tomorrow." John reminded him fondly.

"We don't _have_ to." Sherlock insisted.

"Let me put this another way. I'm going to be in London tomorrow. We can discuss this at a later date. Right now though, we have bigger fish to fry."

"I'm not hungry John; we've only just had breakfast."

"I was talking about how I'm sitting here trying not to snog you senseless on that rather expensive looking sofa I'm certain Mycroft has sat on."

Sherlock looked up from his thinking.

"Oh."

"Oh indeed."

"Not a one-time thing then." Sherlock deduced almost questioning it.

"I hope not."

"So if you wanted more than a snog?" Sherlock saying 'snog' was ridiculous in Johns mind, it just didn't sound proper.

"I want that." John said. "I definitely want that. But Sherlock it's your choice. It's always your choice."

"We'll need preliminary data then." Sherlock smirked and pounced on John making him fall back onto the sofa.

They missed lunch; too busy mapping each other with their fingers and mouths, clothes staying infuriatingly on. John smiled into the each kiss cataloguing every sound of Sherlock, or him and Sherlock, every sound of snogging and it was so much sweeter than any of his other sounds. Soon he fell asleep on the sofa intent on listening to Sherlock breathing. It was pleasant. The two managed to disentangle themselves for dinner.

Sherlock made an announcement over the stroganoff.

"Initial tests are proving most invigorating." He nodded taking a tiny bite.

"Really now." John didn't roll his eyes, not even a little.

"Quite." The sarcasm didn't faze the man at all. "I recommend further study to ensure the variables are stable though."

"Uh-huh." John put his fork down and crossed his arms.

"I didn't expect such positive results. This relationship is going to be the most stimulating of experiments." Sherlock's eyes practically shone with excitement.

"Sherlock I'm only going to say this once." John leaned forward kissing the man chastely. "This will cease to be a relationship the next time you call it an experiment."

Sherlock took a moment to absorb this fact, John had forbidden him from calling it an experiment, not from measuring the data and performing actions as though it were an experiment. He could live with that. He nodded his agreement and began a list of further studies to perform with his new research assistant, or rather on his new assistant.

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**AN: I'd love feedback. positive, negative, omg i have no idea what's going on I should have listened to you and read the first story before hand, whatever.**

** Also, the next story has smut, I'll try and put some warning lines in it so you can skip if you want to, but it's going to be there. **


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